An adventure in independent publishing

I write about London, including London politics, and have been doing so since 2008. Until the end of January 2017, I wrote an award-winning, self-published column for the Guardian and I now publish, write and edit the website On London.

"Zac versus Sadiq" is a 50,000 word account of the 2016 London Mayor election campaign, which I completed within a fortnight of polling day. People thought the contest, which I covered extensively for the Guardian, would be a dull affair. But it turned out to be a fierce and sometimes bitter fight which illuminated key themes of contemporary London life - its dazzling diversity, its extraordinary growth, its high, sometimes punishing, cost of living and its nagging fears about Islamist terror.

The book has had a couple of nicereviews and I've written about the process of writing and publishing it here. Bought directly from me - signed if you wish - it costs £6 plus £1.27 for post and packaging in nice, old-fashioned brown paper. You can make your purchase using the PayPal button below. Thank you. Dave Hill.

10/23/2016

This is me looking amazingly chic and enigmatic in my deep green, rather Mod-ish John Lewis sale suit just before striking out to give a talk about Brexit, London and Labour to the Crouch End ward branch of Hornsey and Wood Green Constituency Labour Party. The people there - around 20, of them, I think - had a lot on their minds, as Labour Party people do these days. So I'm grateful to them for not dumping me at the last minute. A few even came just to listen to me. I hope they still liked me by the end.

10/12/2016

The magazine of Progress, an organisation of Labour Party members, has carried a review of Zac versus Sadiq by the popular and greatly-respected MP for Westminster North, Karen Buck. She was chair of Khan's election campaign, effectively providing a communications bridge between it and the party leader's office. It's a very generous review. Here's how it starts:

Autumn began with a bang for Sadiq Khan. Londoner of the Year in the Evening Standard annual 1,000 top Londoners awards, GQ magazine’s politician of the year, the successful rollout of ‘hopper’ bus tickets. It all looks and sounds as though the result was preordained. But Dave Hill’s highly readable and well-informed account of the months leading up to May is a useful reminder that this was far from being the case.

08/25/2016

I'm pleased and grateful to have been asked by Guardian Books to write a piece about Zac Versus Sadiq. Here's a little excerpt:

It was a harsh, illuminating and ultimately cheering battle, fought out against the backdrop of London’s rapid change, soaring growth and anxieties about Islamist terror, which the Goldsmith campaign tried to exploit at the Muslim Khan’s expense.

I wrote the book in parallel with my Guardian reports, sometimes refashioning and augmenting the journalism to fit the book’s long-form flow, but mostly writing fresh material that wouldn’t have been right for my columns. The more I wrote, the more I felt the book should be a fast, easy read of around 50,000 words that put narrative before analysis.

It seemed to me that the story’s meanings became evident mainly through the telling. Simply describing the events, the settings and the contrasting characters, together with the atrocious output of some in the media, largely provided its own commentary. There wasn’t much need for me to explain things. Although I witnessed, and often participated in, every scene that I described, I purged the first person singular.

08/03/2016

From today, the first ever Double Q title, Zac versus Sadiq, is being stocked by the famous Newham Book Shop on Barking Road, E13. It's a short walk from Upton Park London Underground station and West Ham United's now former football ground. Almost opposite the shop, on the junction of Green Street and Barking Road, stands a bronze statue of the three Hammers stars who were members of England's 1966 World Cup-winning team - Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and captain Bobby Moore - along with Everton's Ray Wilson. This is the territory of East London legend and the book shop, one of the most illustrious independents in the capital, forms a piece of that. Vivian Archer, the shop's owner, put my book on display in the window, right next to one about 1966 and all that. I could ask for nothing more.